MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry have urged Azerbaijan and Armenia to immediately stop hostilities, the Russian foreign ministry said on Monday after their telephone conversation initiated by the American side.

The sides "continued an exchange of opinions as to possibilities to overcome the conflict in Syria through boosting joint fight against Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra (both outlawed in Russia as terrorist organizations) and other terrorist groups, fixing the ceasefire regime and continuing the United Nations-brokered negotiations between the authorities of that country and the whole spectrum of the opposition forces to work out as soon as possible parameters of a peace settlement," the ministry said.

The two top diplomats "expressed serious concern over escalation of confrontation in Nagorno-Karabakh and reiterated their resolute call for immediate cessation of hostilities," the ministry said. "It was agreed to invigorate efforts of Russia, the United States and France as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, to promote the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Lavrov and Kerry condemned attempts by certain ‘external players’ to whip up confrontation around Nagorno-Karabakh."

The two top diplomats also discussed "ways to invigorate international support to the implementation of the Minsk agreements on overcoming the Ukrainian crisis and some other current issues of common agenda," the Russian foreign ministry said.